The reality behind the videos of travel influencers

A remote open valley with snow-capped mountains merging with the horizon. A March 2022 study, titled, The TikTok effect on destination development: Famous overnight, now what?, published in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, reveals how TikTok videos of two destinations in Hainan, China, led to overtourism and “exceptionally negative consequences in many areas”. The researchers studied the effect of a sudden spike in tourist numbers after videos of two destinations went viral on the platform—Jianfengling Main Peak in Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park and the nearby E'xian Ridge and Daguang Dam Reservoir. “There is still a need to explore the impromptu influence of TikTok on a destination's popularity, since tourist destination providers’ lack of understanding, knowledge, and readiness to receive a sudden influx of visitors may create issues such as how to provide sufficient infrastructure for these high numbers of tourists,” they write. During those times, travel marketing meant good content: An ad for France, said, “In Normandy, they make a lace so fragile, they say it has to be protected against moonlight.” Travel ads attempted to reinstate a need to connect with the local culture and do what one does when travelling – learn and unlearn.